“Large as life”, replied Frankl: “I and the boy have already made it
up between us for a third each: you a third, I a third, Alfie a third:
that's fair; I keep the police off the backs of the pair of you, and you
pay me a third. What's the figure?”
In one moment of silence O'Hara plotted; then his tongue yielded to the
temptation of the great words: “Eight-hundred-and-fifty thousand, sir”.
So after three minutes' talk Harris got out, and, as the train started,
sprang into a first-class compartment in which was one other occupant.
Now, it was natural that the treasurer, carrying such a sum, should
scrutinize any stranger, but Harris disarmed suspicion: his right arm,
twisted by Hogarth, was in a sling, and he threw himself aside, and
seemed to sleep, between the peak of his cap and his muffler hardly an
inch of interval: so the treasurer, too, worn with travel, settled into
a half-drowse.
Harris, however, like many of his type, was perfectly ambidextrous,
often using the left hand by preference; and as the train passed
Bromley, he darted, plunged his knife, streaked with the Regent's blood,
into the treasurer's heart, and huddled the body under the seat.
No stoppage till London Bridge, where, with the bag, Harris left the
train, Frankl and O'Hara trotting after his burdened haste; and, after
two changes of cabs, the three arrived at the Market Street house.
There Harris laid the bag on the floor of an empty back room, where
through a broken window came a little light, and the three stood looking
down upon the bag, solemnly as upon a body.
Then suddenly Harris: “Come, gentlemen of the jury, let's have my share
of the dead meat: and 'ere's off out of it for this child--only this
blooming arm of mine! it's going to get me nabbed as sure as sticks.
Never mind--trot it out, Captain! and don't cheat an innocent orphan,
lest the ravens of the valley pick out the yellow galls of some o' you”.
Neither of the other two, however, seemed anxious for the division; and
after a minute's silence Frankl said: “The third of 850, I _believe_, is
2, 8, 3; how are we going to carry away 283 thousand without something
to put it in? I vote, Pat, that we leave the bag here, and come and
divide at midnight sharp. How would that do?”
“Yes”, said Harris, “I think I see old Pat leaving the lot with me--what
O! You know 'ow I'd fondle it for you, and keep it out of the cold, cold
world, till you came back, don't you, you bald-headed priest?”
“Shut your mouth, boy. We can't take it away without something, as Mr.
Frankl very justly observes. Aren't there some safes, Frankl, in Adair
Street?”
“Right you are: and one, as I happen to know, empty. Who'll keep the
key?”
“You, if you like, my friend. I'll keep the keys of the room-doors. And
Harris will stand guard”.
“The very thing”, remarked Frankl.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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